CURRENT LOCATION.
My studio is based in Seven Sisters and I still live in North London.

BEST COFFEE IN TOWN.
I have a great independent coffee shop round the corner
from my studio, called Craving Coffee. Good coffee is hard to find in Tottenham but this is
great and they have amazing food. Always on hand for an afternoon 'pick
me up' or lunch with other great jewellers who
are in the same studio block.

PAST LOCATION.
East London. I used to live in Leyton and work in
Hackney. Sadly, the studio rent is very high in East London and when I
needed more space, it meant that I couldn't afford to stay in the area.

BEST TRAVEL EVER.
That's a big tie between the Outer Hebrides in
Scotland and Iceland. Both are out of this world beautiful. Like
seriously, seriously beautiful. The Isle of Harris, in the Outer
Hebrides had the most incredible plants and animals alongside
carribean looking beaches. Luskentyre beach is stunning. There are
great sand dunes with wild rabbits and horses living on them. I am SO
desperate to return.

BEST ART GALLERY.Villa Noailles, without doubt. An incredible art
space at the top of a steep hill, that overlooks Hyeres, in the South of
France. It's modernist villa, built in the 20's and I learnt about the
couple who lived there. The Noailles just
constantly championed creativity and worked with artists of all mediums
to create an actual masterpiece of a house. I remember when I visited I
was totally overwhelmed with the interiors but also that amount of
brilliant information about the Noailles couple.
I felt very in awe. When you reach the garden it has cleverly combined
that french classic terracotta tiled vibe and agapanthus plants, but
there is a crazy, beautiful section that is just amazing. The view is
great, created by a cut out of the exterior wall
that frames the view magnificently. Now I just want to go back!!

WHAT DID YOU STUDY?
I completed a degree in Jewellery - so far I've stayed very loyal to that haha!

WHERE DO YOU USUALLY WORK FROM?
I have a studio in Seven Sisters,
Tottenham. Definitely not the most beautiful part of London, and not
somewhere on the tourist list but there are many little pockets of
creativity, hidden within industrial units. There are
lots of designers and makers in this area, as it's more affordable than
east London. I have a big, bright, spacious studio that I love. It's
messy and gets grubby with jewellery making but I wouldn't have it any
other way.

WHEN DID YOU FIRST START THINKING OF JEWELLERY MAKING?

Well, when
fashion designers say they made clothes for their Barbies, I did that,
but I also pieced their ears!? Maybe it was then? I always had a
ridiculous bead collection when I was younger and
was constantly making. It took a long while for me to realise I could
actually have a career creating jewellery though. I felt very distracted
by fashion/textiles, thinking I would go down that route. It was a big
light bulb moment when I realised I should be making jewellery.

⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯

DEFINE ARCHITECTURE.

Ooooo that's tricky. Obviously it's designing a
space to be lived in,

or a structure that serves a purpose, or even a
space in the open air...

but it's so much more than that. The spectrum is
so vast and I love that there are

SO many
styles and purposes to architecture. I am so, so in love with
Modernism,

Brutalism but these are very striking statements, that evoke
disgust

and hate in other people! I love the features, internally and on
the exterior that

are used to make up iconic buildings
and the shapes within these,

affect my own designs for jewellery. I am
still yet to put my finger

on what it is that I am SO drawn to with
architecture. That doesn't exactly answer the questions.

Maybe it's
spaces for humans to experience and feel,

whether
that's a theatre, designed to make watchers get caught up in the
moment,

or the music, or other spaces to create the sense of feeling
small.

It's a very hard questions to answer.

WHAT JEWELLERY MEANS TO YOU.

Jewellery is something that can have an
incredible amount of sentiment and meaning. I don't think there is
anything else that is worn by a human that evokes such strong
tendencies.

I am an so, so anti high street, mass produced
jewellery.

It makes my skin crawl.

Feelings within jewellery don't just
have to be remembrance or expensive symbols, but can signify confidence
and power, just solely to you.

I sometimes buy a stone to remind me of
an event. I have an opal for my first London
Fashion Week, made into a necklace and my most recent item is a
tourmaline stone for my 30th birthday, which I'm setting into a ring
that looks like a tiny piece of architecture - it's all blocky. It sort
of reminds me of the building 1 Poultry in the City
of London. I'm so excited.

⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ ⎯

WHAT INSPIRES YOU.
I feel very lucky to be in a time where being
your own boss is becoming more normal. Many of my friends are self
employed and I'm surrounded by very talented, hard working people. It's
good to be around people like that, I feel very honoured
to have such brilliant friends with great businesses! I
can't help but be inspired by jewellery though...starting from the
beautiful Art Deco earrings with geometric stones and enamels or shapes
in the bakelite jewellery of the
same era. It's just in Scandinavians blood to design well (what is
that!?) you can't ignore the iconic great architect called Hans Hansen who created some great
jewellery too (which
still looks SO GOOD) and Georg Jensen, which seems a bit department
store these days but the 1960's pieces are so amazing.

FAVOURITE MATERIALS.
It's got to be yellow gold. Such a lovely
material to work with but I also love silver and the way it's more
affordable and pieces can be a little big bigger and gives you a bit of
freedom to experiement. Many of my pieces start life
in paper though, I love playing with shapes and creating folds to see
what happens in 3D quickly. Choosing stones is always really fun and
there are just so many beautiful styles/colours/cuts.

WHAT DO YOU NEED IN THE MORNING TO MAKE YOU HAPPY.
Coffee, a podcast and a cuddle with my pet house rabbits.

YOUR MOOD, NOW.
Slightly stressed and overwhelmed but I'm working on
really exciting commissions at the moment. I'm finally getting
customers who come to me because they like my style, and what me to work
like that, as opposed to they just need a jeweller
to create a solitaire ring. Just need a few extra days please.

MEETyouMOOD is?
Incredibly inspiring. It seems the colours you use
in your blog posts appeal to me and make me feel mmmmmmmm I think
because there are lots of lovely jewel tones. I also love how textural
your collages are and it has just inspired me to
do a photoshoot with a rich, yummy colour - thank you! [you are welcome ! ;)]

SUNDAY : WHAT AND WHERE.
Sundays are normally spent at my
allotment. Digging over the ground, prepping for fun crops/picking
tomatoes and just generally being wowed by nature and the earth
provides. Then, a big cook up, using the things I have grown. It's
the best feeling.

THE COLOURS IN YOU BEDROOM.
Black and white with pops of colour in
art work and that can be changed/added to. Does green count...I have too
many plants...

Little curiosity: I approached Guadalupe [the model in the pictures] in Chef Nino cafè on a Sunday afternoon at LXfactory [Belem, Lisbon]. The mood board for the shooting was already prepared and the location selected. After a little introduction and a business card, I left her with her friends [I after discovered they actually were her sister and cousin] hoping that she would have get back to me, eventually... not too long later, she came to me full of enthusiasm, to tell me that she was happy to take part of this adventure, and saying "I know a perfect place for you, it's Fundação Champalimaud !! "